I don't see how the grunting affects the audience. In fact, watching 2 players not make any noise at all on court is boring as hell. It adds drama and makes the environment more lively. Can you imagine two men's players pushing the ball back and forth for hours without making a noise?

Actual grunting doesn't bother me that much. The screeching you get from the likes of Sharapova and Azarenka is a completely different story. I barely watch matches involving screeching players these days.

I don't see how the grunting affects the audience. In fact, watching 2 players not make any noise at all on court is boring as hell. It adds drama and makes the environment more lively. Can you imagine two men's players pushing the ball back and forth for hours without making a noise?

I would imagine grunting has a dramatic effect on world wide TV audiences. Casual tennis watchers and many fans don't bother tuning in for banshee wailing matches. The WTA must surely realise this.

Jan 27th, 2013 11:49 AM

Tennisation

Re: Vika Crying: Not Because She Won, But She Felt Bullied

I don't see how the grunting affects the audience. In fact, watching 2 players not make any noise at all on court is boring as hell. It adds drama and makes the environment more lively. Can you imagine two men's players pushing the ball back and forth for hours without making a noise?

The Bolletieri Acadamy, who trained Seles, Agassi, Sharapova and pretty much 99% of the other players who made grunting a thing, have admitted that it's an unsporting tactic that is taught to players in order to disguise the sound of the ball of the strings, distract the opponent and increase chances of an error. They've since abandoned it.

ITF/WTA just don't have the balls to tell top-earning players that have been doing it all their lives to stop, that's all.

Quite right. If they're trying to stop grunting for future generations then they are in effect admitting that grunting is either off putting for the opponent or off putting for audiences or both and therefore is bad for the game as a whole. If they know this then they should do the right thing and stop it now.

This is the crucial thing for me -- and I think some people are getting too hung up on proving that Azarenka took her medical timeout just because she was choking. For me, even IF Azarenka was taking it for an injury, that's STILL unacceptable, to do that right before her opponent has to serve to stay in the match, and even though she had clearly not been in physically unplayable condition in the game before. Even if the timeout was for an injury, it was clearly not so severe that it was absolutely necessary for her to take a timeout.

Well it was acceptabe in the rules, she did nothing wrong. And obviously it was absolutely necessary since she said the injury got worse and thought she could finish the match with it. Again another hater trying to pull Azarenkas game down.

You think an insignificant 10 minutes is going to impact or change the game so much to call it unethical unsportmanship is ridiculous.

Also consider that the mental stress combined with the stress her body was taking had to coincide and worsen her physical condition.

Again I dont care if it was done as tactial or to cool down, she played within the rules, and did what she needed to do nothing wrong with that, because the other player also rests and cools down. If your better you will win if your worse you will lose, a 10 minute timeout wont change these kind of results.

The Bolletieri Acadamy, who trained Seles, Agassi, Sharapova and pretty much 99% of the other players who made grunting a thing, have admitted that it's an unsporting tactic that is taught to players in order to disguise the sound of the ball of the strings, distract the opponent and increase chances of an error. They've since abandoned it.

ITF/WTA just don't have the balls to tell top-earning players that have been doing it all their lives to stop, that's all.

No She was 'injured' very early on in the 2nd set. She proceeded to play on, with no treatment, and played/moved fine. She was up 4-2 and eventually 5-3 with 5-matchpoints on her own serve. The injury was not a factor at all. When she lost the 5 matchpoints, she took a tactical MTO, in fact TWO MTOs were granted - one on her back and one on her knee. Ignoring the admittance in her on-court interview that she was anxious and wanted a break...she took a 10-minute delay right before her opponent's service game immediately after losing 5-matchpoints on a so-called injury that was so unbearable that she was able to play fine for 7 games after sustaining it.

And interestingly now that the final has been played, there were no signs of those tormenting knee and back injuries at all. What a phenomenal job the physio and doctor did.

This is the crucial thing for me -- and I think some people are getting too hung up on proving that Azarenka took her medical timeout just because she was choking. For me, even IF Azarenka was taking it for an injury, that's STILL unacceptable, to do that right before her opponent has to serve to stay in the match, and even though she had clearly not been in physically unplayable condition in the game before. Even if the timeout was for an injury, it was clearly not so severe that it was absolutely necessary for her to take a timeout.

Oh please, the journalists did expose her poor excuses which is their job. She would deserve a lot more questions re her grunting because many have pointed out that it's a blatant cheating.

How is grunting cheating? And if so, why is only her and Sharapova cheating? Not any other women, and not the men like Ferrer who grunt?

And it's not a poor excuse. She misunderstood the on-court question. Channel 7 have hated Azarenka for years, so need any old excuse to attack her. And during the 2004 Olympics, there were complaints lodged against the network for their discrimination against athletes from Eastern European countries - the authorities cleared Channel 7 of any wrong doing, but still the fact a complaint was lodged meant they were pushing boundaries.

I only found this out earlier today, but apparently the lead ESPN anchor Patrick McEnroe racially discriminated against Taylor Townsen before last years US Open. Vika is Eastern European, so he might not like them either.